Dreame’s W10 Robovac promises an ideal hybrid of robot vacuum cleaner and an actually effective mop – and it comes quite close to delivering on that promise, too.
Dreame W10
RRP: $1699 AUD
Pros
Quite effective mopping
Cleans itself well
Can nip around some furniture well due to its squared-off shape
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Cons
Can get stuck on thicker carpets
Small dustbin – and no self-emptying capability
Fermented mop juice can get gross quickly, especially in summer
Robot vacuums have been around for a long while now, and I’ve reviewed more than a few of them over the years at all sorts of price points.
At around $1699, the Dreame W10 sits very much in the upper tier of robot vacuums, mostly selling itself on its advanced mopping technology. Like just about every other robot vacuum, it’s mostly a luxury buy (excluding folks who have significant mobility issues), and it mostly lives up to its promises, especially on the mopping front.
Dreame W10: Design and setup
The Dreame W10 is a big unit that comes in a big box. Setup is relatively simple; unpack everything from the box including the self cleaning station and actual robot vacuum itself, fill the clean water tank in the self cleaning station and fire up the Mi Home app for Android or iPhone to get it connected.
When you first run it, you can either get it to do a speedy zip around your home to map, or do a slower run including cleaning. It’s mostly smart at this kind of thing, spotting most obstacles in its way and marking them out appropriately. It was pleasing to see it intelligently handle some raised surfaces in my home; some robovacs I’ve tested have tended to bump their way around these obstacles badly, but the Dreame W10 managed to climb them without too much fuss.
The Dreame W10’s shape is a little unusual for a robovac. Most of them tend to be resolutely round, but the W10 is instead squared off – Dreame calls it a “D-Shape”, and I guess I can see why.
One potential advantage here is that I’ve found it can make its way under some of my chairs without me having to lift them, as I would for other robovacs. Given they’re an item designed to reduce housework, that’s quite a welcome step, though obviously it won’t apply to every chair or surface.
Dreame W10: Vacuuming Performance
The Dreame W10 standalone can act as a robot vacuum cleaner with reasonably good pickup of most material, at least on maximum suction. If you do need to dial it down for noise-related reasons, it’s a less impressive beast, but that’s true for just about any robot vacuum cleaner.
I have a very specific brutal test that I put robot vacuum cleaners through, via one of my thicker rugs. Many simply give up or just stop and get stuck. The DreameW10 at first struggled, and in one instance got its sweeper brush stuck on some fibres on this rug. Even after a few months of use, it still struggles here working out where it is.
Now, to be absolutely fair, this is a tough rug for any robot vacuum cleaner to confidently handle. Regular carpet and more flat rugs are not an issue at all.
What may be an issue for you with the Dreame W10 is the way it handles the material it picks up. Most pricey robovacs with docking stations include a vacuum bag that auto-empties when it returns home.
The Dreame W10 doesn’t do that, because its cleaning station is really all about the mopping. That means you’ve got to empty it yourself, and probably fairly regularly, because it’s quite a small unit. It’s easy enough to do, but I do wish Dreame could have included a bigger collection bin on the W10.
Dreame W10: Mopping Performance
Mopping is really where the Dreame W10 makes its sales pitch.
Most robot vacuum cleaners these days advertise themselves as suitable robot mops as well.
Put simply, most robot vacuum cleaners are lying here, or at least being cheeky when they call what they do “mopping”.
Generally they involve a damp pad with a tiny water reservoir above them being dragged across your floor, making them gently moist. Honestly, I’ve tested dozens of them, and in most cases anything you might call “mopping” is coincidental at best.
The Dreame W10 has a different approach. It uses two rotating mop pads to actually scrube the floor and ensure a better clean as a result. They won’t come into play if they’re not attached, but if you leave them attached, before any cleaning job the W10 will kick into play and wet the mop heads before setting out to clean.
That’s a slightly noisy process, as is the process when it comes back to base to either re-wet the mop heads or clean them after a job. Probably not an issue if you’ve got the Dreame W10 in an open living area, but maybe a pain if you live in a smaller apartment.
The Dreame W10’s carpet detection is reasonable, but not flawless. I’ve got one section where there’s two rugs with a floor gap between them, and the W10 constantly tries to mop that trench run. If I let it, the carpets would end up damp as well. My workaround there is to use the Zone cleaning setup to exclude that area when I’m mopping; this may be an issue for you otherwise. On more regular carpet again, it’s basically fine.
Actual cleaning is pretty good; I have a busy household with multiple teenager and multiple cats, and it manages their spills and disasters fairly well. It’s certainly well above the quality you’d get out of the typical moist rag approach from most robot vacuum cleaners… with two observations.
Firstly, like with robot vacuuming, this is going to work best if you do run it regularly. The Dreame W10 is a premium machine, but that kind of regular “maintenance” cleaning is still where robot vacuum cleaners do their best work. If you only run it once a week, you might be disappointed when it doesn’t polish everything to a crystal shine.
Secondly, it does do an effective job of mopping and then cleaning itself up, but this leaves you with a filling waste water tank. The app reminds you every time to clear the tank in a timely fashion, but we’re all human, and we’ve bought a robot vacuum cleaner to be a little bit lazy, right?
Don’t be lazy with clearing the waste tank, especially if you have kids and pets. Sure, it looks gross, but be happy that YouTube doesn’t have smell-o-vision, because if you do leave it for a while, it not only builds up in volume, but also in smell. Fermented mop juice might be fine wine in prison, but I’ll pass, thanks.
Dreame W10 Vacuum Cleaner: Verdict
There’s definitely a luxury element to buying a robot vacuum cleaner for most people, and that’s still true for the Dreame W10, especially at its price. It’s not 100% flawless, but if you’ve been looking for a robot vacuum cleaner and especially one that can handle mopping duties, it’s a good option.
You can buy the Dreame W10 through Amazon Australia.
(*Affiliate link)
In this space, you could also consider devices like the rather similar Ecovacs X1 Omni, which uses a similar swirling robot mop – albeit at a much higher price point than the Dreame W10.
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